


I Feel Your Heartbeat (A Loki one shot)

by revengingbarnes



Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Mutants, Angst, Empath, F/M, Fluff, Mutant Powers, Post-Avengers (2012)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-08
Updated: 2018-12-08
Packaged: 2019-09-14 07:58:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,906
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16909182
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/revengingbarnes/pseuds/revengingbarnes
Summary: You can feel every emotion someone has felt in their life, but you have learned to block it out. But then you let your guard down, Loki enters and you shake his hand and holy shit. Because you have never felt pain like that.





	I Feel Your Heartbeat (A Loki one shot)

You didn’t consider you little…. gift as a superpower, since you couldn’t find any use for it in fight situations. HYDRA had experimented on you just like it had on Wanda and Pietro, but instead of getting telekinesis or super speed, you got the ability to feel one’s emotions.

For a while after that, you felt extremely insecure with the gene mutation you got. It irked you that your friends had been given such powerful abilities, and here you were, with nothing of importance or credibility. So you ignored this useless power, if one could call it that. Instead, you focused on training yourself physically. Working, fighting, sparring, until you were the deadliest assassin in HYDRA’s ranks apart from the Winter Soldier. And you didn’t need a gift, or a weapon, to get there.

While Wanda and Pietro were still learning to control their newfound abilities, you learned too. Learned 50 different ways to tear a man apart with your bare hands. Your title was hard earned. But it took a lot of work. And a lot of pain. Most of which was not even yours.

Because despite wanting to bury your ability deep inside you, every time you would break an arm or snap a neck, you would feel the same amount of pain as your victim. Of course, the pain wasn’t going to kill you since it was not your own, but it slowed things down. And it felt absolutely terrible.

But once you and your friends had broken away from HYDRA, all the events that followed made you forget about everything. You met the Avengers, became one yourself, found a broken but loyal family of your own. You told them, of course, with a lot of shame, about what you could do. Insisting that it didn’t define you, and you barely used it. They had all been supportive, and agreed when you warned them to stay away from you.

“I don’t want to touch any of you. Your emotions are your own. And besides,” you breathed deep. “I felt my fair share of pain. I don’t want to feel anymore.”

You were as impersonal as one could get. You didn’t shake hands. You didn’t hug. When you did, the biggest injuries failed to get to you. You would be carrying someone with multiple stab and bullet wounds, but let nothing on. Of course you felt it, you felt every bit. Didn’t mean you had to show it. You never cried, or laughed, or did anything really. Nothing. There were times of accidental contact, or contact during a mission, where you would flinch as a certain emotion would overwhelm you. But you would shrug it off. Life had to go on. You couldn’t get hung up on this.

Most of the time, there was a hollow inside you, one that you couldn’t escape. And to some extent, didn’t want to. You kept a blank face, a tense body, and an empty, clear head. You had long ago convinced yourself that you didn’t have to live anymore. It was more of a survival thing now. You worked through the motions. Mission after mission, hit after hit. You would drop onto your bed just as blank as when you had left it.

Today was a special day at the compound, a day that most people here had been dreading for a while. Thor would be here at any moment. But he wouldn’t be alone. With him would be his adopted brother, Loki, whom you had never met but heard enough about to steer clear of. Loki had all but redeemed himself on Asgard, but according to Thor, he had a lot of redeeming to do on Earth as well. It had taken a lot of convincing for Tony to agree on Loki’s stay. And he was still apprehensive about the idea.

You were indifferent as always. You didn’t know Loki personally, had never met him. You could give less of a crap about him. As long as he stayed out of your way, you’d be good. That’s all you asked.

So when he showed up at the tower trailing behind Thor, you just gave him a nod on the introduction.

“Y/N is a skilled fighter. One of best I’ve seen. She could take me on any day and win.” Thor went on, grinning at you. You just forced a smile, dropping it instantly because of how phony it felt. Loki was looking at you intently, but quickly moved on to the next person.

You didn’t see him much, or talk to him until the next day at breakfast. It was loud like it always was with over 15 people at the table. Conversation was flowing easily between everyone while you just focused on wolfing down as much food as you could.

“More milk, anyone?” Loki’s voice came from the adjoining kitchen. You held your glass up as he walked over with a jug, thinking he’d pour it into the glass. Instead, to your shock, he grabbed the glass, fingers brushing against yours in the process.

It was split second. It couldn’t have been any more. But to you, it felt like the touch happened in slow motion, stretching longer and longer. Against your will, you were bombarded with emotions, feelings piling one of top of another.

Pain. Unimaginable, scathing pain. Screams of torture. Agony. Hurt. Betrayal. Anger. Anguish. It went on and on, and it was intense. More than you had ever experienced. More than you could bear.

The frozen time seemed to start up against as you cried out, standing up abruptly. The glass fell, shattering on the floor. Your chair fell backwards with the force of your standing up. You turned to look at Loki, leaning back on the table slightly to support yourself, thinking you would collapse at any moment. It was dead silent in the room, everyone shocked by what had happened.

It still lingered on your fingertips.  _It._  You couldn’t even call it pain. It was galaxies beyond that. It was so much. It was unfathomable.

Your breathing was hard as you felt it continue to wash over you. You couldn’t control it. Two lone tears trailed down your cheeks as your face collapsed under the weight of the emotions.

Loki was staring at you, a resigned expression on his face. He knew what you could do. He knew what you had felt.

No one dared to speak. It was too shocking a sight. You….. were crying. Crying. A girl who barely shifted her face, was shedding tears now.

Had you been able to register anything besides the pain, you would have tried to compose yourself. But you kept playing it in your head over and over. And the tears came down stronger than ever.

“How-” you nearly choked on your tears. “How could you  _live_  with that?”

No one spoke. Slowly, a sad, almost melancholic smile stretched across Loki’s face.

“I don’t really have a choice.”

For the first time, you wanted to reach out again. An urge you had never had before, one that was too strong to ignore. You had to get out of there. You had to get away from him.

So you did.

…………

You didn’t leave your room for the rest of the day. You were too apprehensive that you would run into Loki again. You didn’t think you could look at him, knowing he had gone through so much, so much, and was still alive and breathing.

You had been roughly aware of everything Loki had been through. The story. The lie about his origin, his fight with Thor, his time in the void, his mother’s death, imprisonment, everything that came afterwards. But to all listening ears, it was just a story. No one could feel the magnitude of everything Loki had faced because they weren’t there.

You weren’t either. Yet you felt like you had lived every emotion he had had since he was born. The neglect as he grew up, the insecurity, until he found out his heritage and everything after that. For some reason…. you admired Loki. Admired his strength and resilience. Admired that despite so much, he had turned a new leaf and started over. If it had been you, or anyone else, they would have gone insane.

But the worst part? All those emotions still lived inside Loki. Every last one.

There was a knock on your door some time in the afternoon.

“Go away.” You managed to croak out.

“Y/N, you’ve been there all day. If you don’t want to come out, at least let someone in.” It was Wanda’s voice, and you sighed. A day ago, you would have scoffed, gave her a stinging retort and sent her on her way. But today…

Today, you let her in.

She was rightly shocked at the action, but walked in anyway. She carried a tray with food on it.

You didn’t say a word to her. Just sat and ate the food, laying on the bed with your back to her once you were done. You heard her get up to leave.

………………..

Loki was in the balcony when you wandered out of your room finally, a little after midnight. You hesitated only a second, before you joined him. He stilled at your presence before relaxing again, though he didn’t say anything. And neither did you.

It was a peaceful silence, but Loki soon broke it.

“I apologize for…. earlier this morning.”

You scoffed. “You’ve had to apologize for every step you’ve taken since you were born. But don’t apologize for the way you feel.” You didn’t know where your words were coming from. “Don’t apologize for things you can’t control.”

“You should take your own advice.” He replied, catching you off guard. You stared at his profile, his eyes still on the view before him. “I might not be able to feel your every emotion, but the hollow eyes, the blank face, it’s not hard to read.”

You still didn’t say anything, too afraid to give any more of yourself away.

“You hide behind this facade, because you are capable of feeling so much, and so intensely, that you don’t want to feel at all. Emotions you don’t think you deserve to feel. And you try to suppress it as much as you can. But maybe you should also stop worrying about things you can’t control.”

Your mouth was open in shock. “How- how did you….?” It hit you almost instantly that Loki had read your mind. He smiled when you figured it out.

“I apologize. I shouldn’t have done that. Not my place to. But now we’re even.”

You smiled at that, shrugging. “I guess we are. Wanna start over?” You held your hand out.

“I’m Y/N Y/L/N, and you are?”

Loki stared at the hand before looking up at you, taking it after seeing the determined look on your face.

You breathed deep at the onslaught of emotions, eyes screwing shut. A good two minutes later, you felt Loki’s current emotion finally seep in.

A sort of…. tranquility. Calm. There were demons in there, lots of them, but he was dealing with them, you could feel it. Here, in the balcony of the Avengers Tower, wind moving past you both as you stood facing each other, you felt the peace in his soul. You opened your eyes, hand still gripping his, and smiled.


End file.
